


space pirates

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Series: space opera au [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Community: HPFT, Gen, Idfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 18:51:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17371430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: Death Eaters are blockading the majority-human Albian system. Our heroes, brought together by their shared history at Pigfarts, come up with a plan to do something about it.





	space pirates

**Author's Note:**

> as we all know, it's not a space opera if you put too much thought into how it works, so i haven't. we're here to have fun and by golly, that's what we'll have.
> 
> written for round one of hpft's great collab, for the theme 'new beginnings' and the challenge 'space opera'.

Seven recent graduates of the most prestigious school in the known galaxy, Pigfarts, walk into a pub. They sit down and say to the bartender, “Why the long face?”

The bartender, an exceptionally grumpy man that Lily would describe as ‘kind of like a bipedal goatman I guess?’ to blank staress from all her non-human companions, says, “You have five seconds to order something or get out of my pub.”

They order a round of gorglebeer. 

“So,” James Potter says as he sets the gorglebeer on the table, “if the main problem is a lack of medical supplies and anything less essential than nutribricks on majority-human planets, I say we go into the import-export business.” 

“Why did you feel the need to bring us to a backwater pub in the arse end of the universe to make this announcement?” Sirius Black asks, though he has immediately chugged half the gorglebeer James paid for. 

“Seems like the kind of plan you need to make in a pub,” James says, shrugging. Sirius nods to concede the point.

Silence falls as Alice licks her eyeball, which Lily definitely no longer finds gross at all. Alice is rather beautiful, in fact, with her aqua scales and ostentatious neck frill, and the eyeball-licking is not at all creepy. Nope.

“How do we actually make it happen, though?” Remus asks, glancing for the fourth time at the other patrons of the pub, who are all ignoring them (quite possibly in favour of doing criminal activity themselves; it’s that kind of establishment). Lily wishes he were less afraid all the time, but she can’t deny it has its uses — with both she and Remus at risk of angering people with their mere existence, staying on high alert is sensible, if exhausting. 

Lily can see from James’s face that he didn’t get this far before asking them all to meet him here. His eagerness to help her people was endearing, though — and now she knew it was genuine and not just an attempt to get her to go out with him. 

“My uncle works at a medipack factory,” Frank offers and James grins, gesturing triumphantly. 

“As much as I would like to go home,” Lily says reluctantly, “I want to also be able to leave again, so I don’t see how I could be part of this.” She’s not been home since her third year at Pigfarts — that’s when they brought in the blockades and prohibited humans who lived in the Albian system from leaving. She was one of the last humans to be educated off-world, and though she misses her parents (and even, sometimes, her sister), she knows she can do far more good on this side of the Death Eater blockade.

“You wouldn’t be able to actually do the supply drops,” James concedes, “but it’s not all supply drops, there’d be so much other stuff to do — working out how to get the stuff, and I dunno, working out how to get through the blockade I guess.”

“Being a space pirate in the holos looked so easy,” Peter says mournfully, his enormous ears drooping. “All they have to do is blow stuff up and the day is saved.”

“Blowing up stuff is not the answer,” Lily says as Sirius opens his mouth. Sirius closes his mouth again.

“Oi,” a voice says behind Lily, and she whips round to see the goatman bartender again. “Are you serious about this, the smuggling?”

It seems like a weird question for the bartender to be asking (how had he even been listening? They needed to speak quieter, goodness), but his square-pupiled eyes were so piercing and his face so serious that Lily felt it was important to consider the answer. Everyone looked at each other before James said, “Yeah, of course we are.”

“Well, don’t be,” the bartender says shortly, picking up Sirius’s empty glass and turning away. “It’s no life for people as young as you.”

He’s barely taken three steps before Sirius is in front of him, his tail thumping against the floor in his excitement. “You know people who do it? Or you’ve done it?”

The bartender pauses, and Lily can’t see his face but she can see Sirius’s, and he is not at all deterred by the look the bartender is giving him.

“If you’re really committed to it I can… I have some people I can get you in contact with. People with the same goal.”

“Wait,” Remus says, “how do we know we can trust you?”

“How do I know I can trust you?” the bartender retorts, turning back around to face the table. 

“I’m a human,” Lily offers. “I trust them, and I have family on Hudders 413. I’ll vouch for them.”

The bartender considers for a moment before nodding. “My name is Aberforth Dumbledore.”

This means nothing to Lily. The gravity with which he says it and the gasps from most of the table indicate that it’s _supposed_ to mean something, though. This is hardly the first time something like this has happened — all too often at school she had had a blank look when things were mentioned that her classmates were obviously already familiar with. Humanity had tried to keep to itself for so long, discouraging off-world education or even travelling off-world, that there are huge gaps in her knowledge even though she attended Pigfarts. 

And despite all that caution, it hasn’t helped humanity at all. Everyone knows the Death Eaters won’t stop at a blockade, and will eventually start restricting basic rations. They’re just waiting for the rest of the galaxy to forget. The news cycle is short.

“As in — you’re the one in hiding? How do they not find you, if you’re running a pub?” James asks, which gives Lily less information than she would like.

“No, you granff, that’s my brother. Do you have a ship?”

“Yeah,” Sirius says, puffing out his chest proudly. The Shrieking Shack (so named because it makes a terrible shrieking sound at takeoff, but no one has worked out how to fix it and now it’s sort of comforting) has been a project he, James, Remus and Peter have worked on since their fifth year. Lily should have known all along that they planned on becoming space pirates — there are only so many uses for secret storage compartments and undetectable levels, after all. 

“Meet me with your ship at these coordinates after moonrise. Make sure you aren’t followed.” Aberforth writes down coordinates on a napkin and gives them to Lily, apparently judging her the most trustworthy of the lot. “I hope you don’t turn up, and it means you’ve reconsidered. This isn’t like the holos.” 

But instead of continuing to dissuade them, he leaves, going back to polishing glasses with a rag dirtier than the glasses are. Everyone grins at each other before Sirius lets out a woop.

They’re _space pirates_ now.


End file.
